Opua: PAN’S LABYRINTH; before and after
Opua: PAN’S LABYRINTH; before and after
The evening before I flew to New Zealand, Carol and I watched PAN’S LABYRINTH, the 2006 film from Mexican director, Guillermo del Toro, that I somehow missed at the time.
Five or ten years ago there was noise about violence on television. I did not pay much attention to it. The two most violent books that come immediately to mind are THE BIBLE and THE COLLECTED WORKS of William Shakespeare. We are a violent species. Even our fairy tales are violent. What really is much worse that, say, Hansel and Gretel? But even by such fairy tale standards, PAN’S LABYRINTH has an exceptional number of ‘look away’ scenes--look away because you don’t want to see what is happening, although the film does not dwell on the painful details. And if PAN’S LABYRINTH is a fairy tale by definition because it does have fairies in it, it is one in which almost everyone dies. It is also an original work of art.
Set in Spain in 1944, five years after the end of the Spanish Civil War, there are still resistance fighters in the mountains and Franco’s government establishes military outposts to destroy them. One of these outposts is commanded by an officer from a distinguished military family--his father died a general. The officer brings his wife and stepdaughter to live with him. The labyrinth of the title exists physically behind the army encampment, but also in the mind of the stepdaughter who escapes there from too brutal reality.
In contrast with the action, the soundtrack is beautiful and gentle, reflecting the girl’s innocence. As soon as the movie ended I bought and downloaded it from iTunes, listened to it twice during the flights here on noise-canceling headphones, and am listening to it now. The work of Javier Navarrete, it was nominated for best original score, but lost out to Babel, which I saw but whose music I don’t remember. I think the Academy made a mistake. Navarrete’s music is already among a handful of my all time movie favorites.
----------
Camera’s do lie; but in this case not too much.
The photos are before and after the recent circumnavigation pictures of THE HAWKE OF TUONELA on her mooring. The ‘after’ picture, facing toward the marina, was taken this morning before any substantial maintenance.
Although taken in different directions--before to the east; after to the west--because I wanted to photograph the sunny side, the other obvious difference is the absence in ‘after’ of the backstay radar mount, which as readers of the passage log may recall broke in the Indian Ocean and has not yet been replaced. It may never be.
Aesthetics count to me; but a realistic standard is not to examine a boat under a magnifying glass but from a boat length away. Thus judged, I think THE HAWKE OF TUONELA looks remarkably good for having just sailed around the world.
Standing on board you would see blemishes. The deck needs repainting. The topsides touched up. The mainsail cover, the tiller cover, and the dodger replaced. The interior painted. I put the first of several coats of oil on the cabin sole an hour ago. And the bottom needs anti-fouling.
We are scheduled to haul from the water on Thursday.
Monday, March 8, 2010